A Treatise on Doors and Bridges

Abstract

In 1987, Florence Kaslow, president of the Division of Family Psychology of the American Psychological Association, appointed Carol L. Philpot and Gary Brooks co-chairs of a newly formed Gender Issues Committee. They were given a mandate to open a positive dialogue between the genders that would diminish the animosity that had developed in the wake of the feminist movement of the 1970s. The synergy between the co-chairs resulted in a decade of research, writing, and clinical practice designed to achieve that mandate, culminating in the APA publication of Bridging Separate Gender Worlds: Why Men and Women Clash and How Therapists Can Bring Them Together in 1997. This article discusses the main tenets of that book.

Key Words:

• Gender
• gender roles
• communication
• gender-sensitive psychotherapy
• Florence Kaslow